Issue 06: April 2025... The Vernal Journal

(Ok so, Vernal means spring... I know it's a stretch.) If you missed the last issue, you can read it here.

Last time I asked for some questions, a recurring request was Tips for New Freelance Artists. I know many readers don't fall into this category, but for those who do, I put together a list at the end of some of the things I find important in retrospect. I've been reviewing a lot of portfolios lately, and these things are especially on my mind, as this is a tough time for artists across the board (and particularly in the animation industry.) So here's my challenge for this season:

If an artist's work speaks to you, has sustained, inspired, or delighted you, think about how you can return the favor. Reach out, get their book, their album, share their work with your friends.

I will be doing the same!

Card News

Archazia's Island, Lorcana's seventh set, is here! I co-painted several cards for this set with friend-of-the-newsletter Nicholas Kole, and my favorite is probably this Emerald-Ruby Mad Hatter. When Nicholas and I work on a piece together, it can take a few different routes depending on the situation. In this case, he was really pivotal in the character model and posing, and I was in charge of the composition and color palette. Painting the Hatter means going a bit wild with shapes, something close to my instinctive drawing habits. You can see him on booster packs as well, good luck with your pulls.

The Everhaven Archives

More Everhaven characters! Here I was exploring more costumes and class specialties for some batty, cosmic, and floral character types that were invented by friend-of-the-newsletter Nicholas Kole (wow that guy is everywhere.)

If you're just joining, the Everhaven game was unfortunately cancelled right before release last year. But I hope you enjoy these anyway, there are many more fun concepts to excavate, and I'll just keep chipping away at them.

The Excellence Files

I thought it might be a good idea to sometimes share artwork besides my own here. There's so much excellence to be appreciated. For example...

The Comics of Lee Gatlin!

The comic strip is one of my very favorite mediums, and these are some of my favorite I've come across in a long time. I've followed Lee's works for a while, his comics are hilarious and bizarre, and he captures subtle dialogue and jokes with beautifully raw drawings. He also draws a lot of Halloween monsters, so I award extra points for that as well.

Here are a couple of absolute gems:

Here's Lee's website: www.leegatlin.com. And you can also find him on Blue Sky.​

Do yourself a favor and check out Lee's fantastic work, and if you pester him enough you can even buy some of his comics. Thank you, Lee, for being excellent!

Freelancing Tips
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​The most common question from the Q&A last time was advice for new freelance artists. (If you are NOT a freelance artist and this is boring, you don't have to read it. I'll see you next time!) Having freelanced for about 10 years, these are some tips I came up with based on the stuff I find myself saying the most. I can’t predict the future, and no doubt we are in some fraught times that are going to make this job more difficult than ever. But this is my good faith advice that I hope is reasonably evergreen to those who want to design and illustrate with passion and knowledge at a high level. I don’t want to sugarcoat it, this job is tough, but I also will not underestimate you. So I’m proceeding with that in mind:

-Understand your business model. Is your customer base wide (are you an author or convention artist, do you need lots of eyeballs on your work?) or is it narrow (are you a designer or concept artist for one client at a time?) Frankly, most of us are both, but I think the assumption that you need to chase everything at once keeps us from focusing at times. These tips are mostly for the latter example, maybe another time we can do tips for the independent artist.

-Seek out mentors and peers... especially peers! These are not your competition, they are your fellow adventurers. Conventions, Discord, sketch groups, anywhere the vibe is respectful and constructive, put yourself in the places where exciting work is being made, discussed, and improved. If I could give only one tip, THIS is the one!

-You need a portfolio! You can and probably have gotten work from social media, and it can be very helpful, but you also need a professional website of your best, curated stuff. The work you show here defines the jobs you’ll get, in both medium and subject matter. Draw comics to get comics work. Draw horses to get horse gigs. Etc. Best work goes up front in a portfolio, and ruthlessly cut out old stuff that doesn't represent your goals or skills.

-When you're on the fence about accepting a new gig, ask yourself- will this improve my portfolio, and in the direction I want to go? If the answer is no, there should be some other great reason for saying yes.

-You need personal projects! Especially when your professional portfolio is sparse. Create your own pitch for a game, a book, a short film, whatever avenue you want to work in. This is your chance to demonstrate you belong there, develop your abilities and maybe even bring your own project to life down the road. It also fills your schedule between clients.

-It's tempting to cast a wide net when you're starting out, and try to offer all specialities and art expertises (and maybe that's what you need to do for a little while, try em out!) but the more you can hone in on your favorite subjects, moods, mediums, and vision, the sooner you'll be asked to do projects you really love that help you break new ground in your art.

-Dream clients of yesterday might not be the dream clients of today. It’s great to have those goals to shoot for, I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all. But clients can change or disappear, you yourself can change, and new dream clients can appear from nowhere. So don’t define your career entirely by who you work for, but rather... Is the work fulfilling, does it move you in the right direction and help you grow?

-I know these tips have all been very business-oriented, but you can't lose sight of the fact that your art is more than a business, and aligning your work with your passion is the whole point of doing this thing at all.

One last reminder, I'm still taking orders for signatures until the final minutes of March 31. So depending when you read this, if you're looking for signed cards...

Email Brookes at lorcanasignings@gmail.com

As long as your email comes in before that deadline, you're on time. After that we'll be dealing with all the mail for a while. (Yes, there will be another round later, I'm just not sure when yet.)

Here's an ice cream sundae that my daughter drew. Superb shapes. Until next time, John

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​www.johnloren.com​